One in five Canadians suffers from chronic pain. Not every patient responds to medication in the same way – and some people don’t respond at all. Renowned pain genetics researcher Luda Diatchenko is working on personalizing treatment for each sufferer.

The first cover of Headway, in 2005, featured McGill astrophysicist Vicky Kaspi. The Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics and her team had recently discovered 20 pulsars in a single star cluster in the Milky Way. Only 10 years later, Kaspi and her team have made several other major breakthroughs. Headway caught up with Kaspi, who holds the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology at McGill, to discuss what she’s looking into now.

With a population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, the planet must find ways to significantly increase food production by, for example, expanding irrigation or improving crop genetics. And this, despite the threat of unpredictable extreme weather conditions.

In health care, information is crucial: The data shared by doctors and nurses determine a patient’s diagnosis and care. McGill researchers with the hSITE Strategic Research Network are using new technologies to improve the speed, accuracy and efficiency of medical services.

Though an increasing amount of social interaction is taking place in cyberspace, the lines dictating appropriate online behaviour remain unclear. McGill researchers are examining the effects the Internet is having on groups as diverse as teens, workers and political activists.

Many of the principal researchers in the McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre came of academic age during the 13-year-long, multi-national Human Genome Project – but it’s the developments since the mapping of the human genome that fill them with wonder.